Cat People Actress Dies
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 27th, 2009
Jane Randolph, who starred in the two Cat People film noir classics of the 1940s as the “other woman,” died May 4, 2009, in Gstaad, Switzerland of complications from a broken hip. She was 94.
Jane Randolph, born Jane Roemer (October 30, 1919 – May 4, 2009) in Youngstown, Ohio, was an American film actress. After growing up in Kokomo, Indiana, she moved to Hollywood in 1939 in an attempt to start a movie career. She was eventually picked up by Warner Bros. and appeared in bit movie roles in 1941.
Randolph appeared opposite Simone Simon in 1942’s Cat People and again in The Curse of the Cat People two years later.
Cat People is a 1942 horror film produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. The writing is credited to DeWitt Bodeen, but Tourneur, composer Roy Webb, Lewton and his secretary all contributed to the script.
Cat People was followed by a sequel, The Curse of the Cat People, in 1944. (A remake directed by Paul Schrader and starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, and John Heard was released in 1982.)
Randolph also had lead rolls in the film noirs Highways by Night (1942), Jealousy (1945) and Railroaded! (1947) and appeared in two films in the series featuring the detective known as the Falcon.
After Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Randolph largely retired from acting.
In 1949, she married movie producer and Southern California businessman Jaime del Amo — the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California, was built on his family’s land — and moved to Spain.
Randolph had a chalet in Switzerland in addition to a home in Los Angeles.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
It’s an interesting concept —people who can turn into cats— reminiscent of the most ancient shamanistic traditions. Particularly important in the early Mesoamerican cultures of Peru & Southeast Mexico.